Fearless and Free
The Adventures of Frances Forrester-Brown
by
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On January 8, 1907, Franc and Will moved, bag and baggage, to Tameja "to take root." Instead of felling mahogany trees, they would be cutting bananas. Instead of traveling in a variety of locomotives, they would move everywhere by water. Tameja was nine miles upriver from the harbor at Livingston and the arrivals and departures of river boats were daily occurrences. Many regularly traveled the Rio Dulce - lighters, tenders, dories, pitpains, steamers, launches - and Franc came to know them all by name, mentioning the Carib, the Quetzal, the Barrios, the Tameja, the Belize, the Esperanza, the Vera Paz, the Coreo.
The transition from mahogany to bananas had begun four years earlier when Will and Jekyll had bought the property and decided to cultivate it as a banana plantation. The United Fruit Company was making huge inroads in Central America and that seemed a guaranteed source of income. Whatever the Browns harvested, they sold to the Company. They were a small cog in that huge banana machine and their boats were there at the port of Livingston when the steamer of the Great White Fleet arrived each week. Franc described the scene:
Steam tugs in the lead, followed by gasoline launches, each nearly hid from view by the great lighters, piled high with their green cargo, each giving a tow to many and varied smaller craft - wooden lighters, barges, pit-pans, dories - big and small - loaded with their quota of fruit, from several hundred bunches to only half a dozen. This string of boats overtake and pass the sailing vessels that make a start as soon as the smoke of the steamer is sighted.
It was first come, first served to present the bananas for inspection so it was a race for sellers to get out to the steamer early in the day. Otherwise, one waited a turn - sometimes far into the night. The bananas were inspected by receivers who would quickly decide whether to accept or reject a bunch, giving all manner of absurd excuses for tossing one aside. Those planters who had sufficient fruit to have a contract with the UFC were paid 30 cents a bunch. Those not under contract got 25 cents.
Will and Franc, having their own launch, the Lydia, and a schooner, the Eliza, bought and transported fruit from smaller farms - from one acre to several hundred. They dotted the shores of the Rio Dulce from Livingston all the way up to Lake Izabal. On the days just before the UFC steamer was to arrive at the port, they would start upriver with launch and schooner, stopping at all the farms on one side of the river and spending the night in a tiny shack at the edge of the Lake. At daybreak, they began the descent, buying fruit on the other side of the river as they made their way back to the port.
A decade later, Franc would begin work in the United Fruit Company office in New York - as a file clerk. In her diary, she wrote:
Strange fate.
To say the least.....
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About the Book
This is the story of a nineteenth century American girl who moved with her husband to the jungles of Central America in 1898. There she helped to manage mahogany and banana plantations, hunted, fished, kept a small jungle zoo, and cared for the sick and injured, whatever their nationality. When widowed after almost 20 years, she returned to the States and made a new life for herself, working and playing in early 20th century New York, San Francisco and Miami.
About the Author
Sara Richardson is a great niece of the subject - Frances Forrester-Brown. She was a Librarian for 20 years and has been a Tour Professional in Philadelphia for 15 years. She has an M.A. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.S. in Library/Information Science from Drexel University. She is the author of The Methodist Experience: a History of the Methodist Hospital School of Nursing and miscellaneous article and reviews. She has a son and daughter and three grandsons and, though a Southerner by birth, has lived in Philadelphia for 45 years.